


Mock Not Dating

by shinealightrose



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Cute, Dating, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 20:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5219483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightrose/pseuds/shinealightrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kris is goaded into online dating. Baekhyun is not his ideal, but maybe he’s exactly what Kris needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mock Not Dating

It's Kris' first time caving to peer pressure, and he really wouldn't mind dying right this moment. Additionally, if he could develop the power to fly, and fly as fast as he can away from this place, he'd take that too. Jongdae is so going to get it later. Jongdae and all of his schemes, practically wringing Kris' arm into setting up an account on mock-not-dating.com one night when he was a little buzzed. Now, two weeks later, he's out on a date with his logarithmic match, and if ever Kris doubted before the trend of online matchmaking, he's sure to prove his point now. Also, he's pretty sure he's being mocked, gently so. 

"Byun Baekhyun," says the chipper thing before him. "And you're Kris? Well, I wouldn't have minded somebody a little shorter, but hey - tall, dark and handsome's all the rage these days, so I figure I can learn to make do." Then he winks at him. Kris would kindly like him to scram. 

Byun Baekhyun, to put it kindly, isn't at all Kris' ideal type. Kris likes the quiet ones; Baekhyun is loud. Kris likes his dates to have a little more meat on them; Baekhyun is rather scrawny. Kris likes kind, sweet, considerate people; Baekhyun just insulted his height while smiling. He could go on making lists all night, for instance how Kris is a vegetarian being forced to watch Baekhyun chowing down on an extremely rare-cooked burger. Then there's that one other thing - just a minor detail, of course - about how Kris likes girls and Baekhyun is quite, very, positively, without a doubt...  _male_.

Truthfully, he's just a bit bi, but he could have sworn he ignored that bit when inserting his preferences in the database. It's easier this way to get along in society, namely - his job - he's found, if he conveniently shuts out that part of his past. Jongdae knows though, and Jongdae must have gone in behind him and edited his facts. And maybe he did more than switching Kris' preferred gender, because there is no way Kris can stand anything longer than one dinner out with Mr. 'I prefer blondes actually. Ever dyed your hair? You'd probably look pretty hot' Byun Baekhyun.

_If_ , he can even last that long. 

Truthfully, Baekhyun reminds Kris a bit of someone else, but it's too soon to decide if this is a good thing or not. He has short brownish hair, where hers was long, and he wears it messy and probably finger-combed. His smile is coaxing, and eyes flashy, not alluring. His face looks nothing like hers. In fact, the more Kris stares the more he thinks they have nothing in resemblance except for more than an itch of attraction on Kris' part. Baekhyun's probably not as sassy either, although... he just might. 

"I kind of like my hair," Kris grumbles assertively, shaking away images of the past.

Baekhyun blinks, looks mildly amused, and then says, "Oh. Oh okay then. I mean, the Snape-look isn't too bad I guess. Hey, do you ever put it up in a pony tail? Pony tails are  _hot._ " 

"Do you always nag a guy about his hair on the first date?" Kris responds before he can stop his mouth.

Baekhyun smirks. "No. Not always. Usually I do aegyo. Do you like aegyo?!"

"Uhh...." Kris pretends to think. "Not really, no."

"How about singing? Do you like music?"

"Only in the elevator."

By some miracle he manages to survive dinner. He declines dessert, Baekhyun pouts, and then Kris tries to pay for the meal like a gentleman. It's his way of proactively paying Baekhyun back for never calling him again, however, Baekhyun calls him out on his perceived gender roles and splits the bill with a smile Kris can only describe as cute. This doesn't bode well for the dormant section of Kris' heart. 

"Are you really this quiet?" Baekhyun prods him all the way out of the restaurant and onto the street. "Are you just nervous? Shy? Or do I talk too much?"

Kris scratches his head, lets the door swing shut behind him and then says sheepishly, "Some combination of all that really?"

And Baekhyun just laughs. "I think I like you. Honesty’s a great virtue, and you know you can always tell me to shut up if I start to get annoying. Promise I won't mind. Honest!" He laughs some more, suggests they go for coffee, and even though this means prolonging the date for which Kris has no intentions of following up, he finds himself agreeing despite his inclinations. 

"Sure.... yeah, why not." 

He might as well go for broke. In this case, miserable and confused. Honestly. Baekhyun prefers honesty, but Kris had been anything but. He doesn't do dates anymore. He especially doesn't do dates with boys he met through an online match-up, but Jongdae had insisted. Anything to get Kris out of his rut of apathy, as Jongdae defined it. And Kris had caved. Now he can't wait until this ordeal is over, when Baekhyun and his cute smiles can go home and stroll out of Kris' life as easily as he came. 

 

 

 

"How'd your date go?" Jongdae's sicky-sweet voice the next day is enough to make Kris' head pound.

"Great. Wonderful. The best.  _He_ , was everything I don't prefer, thanks so much Jongdae for your excellent ideas. You owe me a veggie burger, three cups of coffee, a pastry tart, and if you don't get on that dating site and cancel my account which I  _know_  you hacked before the free trial period expires, you're going to owe me a lot more than the $39.99/month subscription fee."

Kris really hates how Jongdae poses, languidly assessing him while he leans across his desk. "Did you practice that speech in the shower?"

Kris doesn't look at him because, yes... not that he'll admit that. Fortunately Jongdae lets it go, the speech bit of Kris' miserable life, not about his date.

"Come on, tell me, tell me. What was his name? What was he like?"

"Byun Baekhyun, a foot shorter than me, scrawny, too talkative. Jongdae, did you really hack my profile and say that I liked boys?" Kris has a habit of running his observations and objections to life in one, swift go.

"You do like boys. You dated two back in college and were considered quite the charmer." 

"And  _all_  of that was before Jessica," he starts to protest.

"Exactly!" For a moment Jongdae sounds just like Baekhyun: chipper, positive,  _annoying_. "Admit it though, you miss those days. You were happier, you had more fun. Then you dated a girl who trampled all over you. Kris, come on... return to your roots." He grins gleefully, and Kris wants to roll his eyes.

"You hacked my profile and said I wanted a guy..." Kris has nothing left to dwell on except for this strange fact. Since college he's dated girls almost exclusively, and only part of that because he'd been too lazy to look around. He didn't have time to go out and find a boyfriend or girlfriend. He dealt only with those who put the time into getting to know him, which resulted in a few one or two repeat dates with some girls who worked downstairs, and then finally someone introduced him to Jessica. He fell in love with her. He'd wanted to marry her. Four years and a diamond ring later, it appeared that she didn't agree. 

"Jongdae, I..." Kris sighs and can't continue his plea to just let him be. 

"You'll be fine, Kris, just wait and see." Jongdae doesn't deny though that he somehow  _fixed_  Kris' bio and profile, something Kris would be more vehemently irked about (along with the evening Jongdae got him drunk and made him sign up in the first place). "You don't even have to go on another date with the guy. Wait for another match. It's simple!"

However, Baekhyun takes that opportunity to text him, right in the middle of the work day, cute notations below an even cuter selca and Kris cringes, visibly, internally, any way that it's possible to cringe. Of course it would happen right when Jongdae was around to give him trouble. 

"Don't!" he says just as Jongdae scoops up his phone. His friend is not inclined to listen to him. 

"' _Hi, Kris_ ,'" Jongdae reads out loud in exaggerated, stilted fashion. "Wow, this kid looks adorable. How old is he anyways?"

"Twenty-four," Kris mumbles.

"Ooh, a baby, then! Cute! ' _Thanks for last night, I take back all offensive statements about your hai_ r' -- Hah! Did he really not like your hair? -- ' _but then when a guy's as attractive as you, I just have to some find faults_ '" Jongdae takes a second to chuckle. "He includes a lot of winks and hearts. I repeat: cute! ' _Please let me put it in a ponytail next time though? Pretty please? Only if you want! I'll be waiting. Call me!_ ' -- More hearts, well Kris, you have a winner."

Kris proceeds to head plant face down on his desk, blindly grabs his phone out of Jongdae's clutching hands.

"I can't help but notice you gave him your cell number."

"He was cute and persistent. What was I supposed to do," Kris muffles into his desk, not even opening his eyes.

"Hmmm," Jongdae muses. "Sounds like maybe he's your type after all."

 

 

 

Two weeks later, and Kris has been on approximately three more dates with Baekhyun, one of them a quick lunch that Kris thinks hardly counts. He still won't admit to anyone other than himself that he's only continuing with this farce because he's too much a softie to tell Baekhyun  _no_. He doesn't want to date, he doesn't want a boyfriend. He doesn't want a girlfriend either. It's been less than six months since his botched proposal to Jessica, and Kris has no desire for a rebound. For this reason he insists to himself that Baekhyun isn't a rebound. Baekhyun is just a new acquaintance who likes to flirt with him but otherwise keeps things PG and makes Kris laugh despite his better nature. 

"Sweet apartment, nice," says the rebound in question when he first gets a glimpse of Kris' patio view. The cityscape pans out before them from twenty floors up. Baekhyun's eyes light up like stars, the real entities invisible now for the low hanging clouds. Even through glass, they can see the cold whipping of the wind in the leaves it shakes around. They do not open the doors even though Baekhyun would probably like to. Kris is still in quite the daze over the sequence of events that moved him to invite Baekhyun to his home. The boy had shivered so much when they were outside.

"It's cool, yeah," he agrees half-heartedly. The view is impressive but he's seen it before. "You want something to drink?"

"Sure, whatever you got."

Baekhyun makes himself quite at home. His shoes stay by the door, but his jacket lands across a chair back, his beanie on the kitchen counter, outer sweater on the sofa. He stands by the window in sock-clad feet, scrunching up his toes in the soft carpet. Kris doesn't know why he notices this specifically when normally he would be upset over the careless state Baekhyun seems to treat his apartment. 

"Tea? Hot chocolate? Either of those sound like they would warm you up?" Kris starts opening up cabinets in search of mugs to keep himself from thinking about Baekhyun's toes.

"Sure!" Baekhyun calls from the living room. "Or alcohol. That works too." The sound of his laughter is warming. 

He serves Baekhyun wine, and makes tea for himself. He doesn't trust himself to not get drunk and accidentally make a fool of himself. The last thing he needs is for Baekhyun to turn into Jongdae. Who knows what kind of internet machinations he could get into, like maybe buying an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that you have to evacuate for high tide. Baekhyun looks like the kind of guy who would do that, or who'd goad Kris into doing that. The guy's cheeks are still a little bit red from the outdoor winds. The sudden snowstorm seemed to take them by surprise, effectively ruining their date. Kris invited him here instead, and now it comes down to this: Kris trying to admit what he's doing to himself and Baekhyun at the same time.

"You know... I don't really..." 

"Hey, where's your bathroom?" Baekhyun interrupts. 

Kris' heart starts to pound because of it. He was just getting geared up to tell Baekhyun he doesn't like him as more than a pseudo-friend. He was just going to nip this baseline attraction in the bud, to somehow politely turn Baekhyun down. Instead, he points the way to the bathroom door and has to wait for Baekhyun to come back out. A flush of the toilet, faucet squeaking on and then off. Baekhyun doesn't come out right away, and Kris starts to irrationally panic.

"Sorry, were you worried?" Baekhyun laughs at his face when he finally emerges. His mouse-brown hair looks messy, like Baekhyun once again combed it with his fingers. "I was trying to fix my hair but I think I only made it worse. Saw some shears though. Sure you don't want to cut your hair? Not saying I'm good at it but...Oh! We could still dye it! I mentioned, right? How you'd look awesome as a blonde?" Baekhyun stops and puts his hands on his hips, probably visualizing Kris with shorter hair of a different color and-

"No... thanks." 

Baekhyun pouts again, but then he grins and says no more about it. "Tell me about yourself Kris."

This isn't an easier line of questioning. "I thought I did?" Everything pertinent really, about his job, his family, his travels, his cat. Curse the thing for being timid around strangers because it's always so much easier to distract awkward visitors - in this case, dates - with something fluffy.

"Aww, but you haven't told me any of the good stuff. Come on, Kris. Something juicy at least."

Instead, Kris prompts Baekhyun to talk about himself. He comes away with half a dozen names of celebrity crushes, the three best karaoke joints in this part of town, and how Baekhyun loves food but can't figure out how to cook. After a fortunately non-explicit tale of Baekhyun's last serious boyfriend and its messy end, he turns the subject back to Kris.

"Come on now. Your turn. Spill it. At least tell me some names. Height, weight, hair color, quirks, kinks, or you can just leave out all the good stuff like that."

Baekhyun looks cozy, propped up against one arm of the couch, one socked-foot on the ground, one digging between the cushions and verging awfully close to Kris' legs where he perches angled on the other side. He finished his tea long ago, leaving half a sip of cold liquid in his mug. Meanwhile, Baekhyun brought not only his wine glass but the bottle over to the coffee table. He nudges his refilled glass towards Kris, and this time Kris doesn't refuse a sip of fortification. He brings the lip-stained glass of Baekhyun's chapstick to his mouth and tosses it back unstylishly. 

"Soojin, short, fit, black hair... half a dozen dates when I was twenty-two."

Baekhyun's eyes soften out and then expand.

"Yeeun, even shorter, trim, cherry brown hair... we dated for almost three months."

"Those are... girls' names," says Baekhyun. Kris doesn't need the reminder. He finds it's easier to stare at the wall somewhere to the side of Baekhun's head and not meet him eye to eye. He has one more still to list. 

"Jessica. Perfect height for me, stellar body, flowing brown hair. Four years until six months' ago... Hope you don't mind that I left out the more interesting details of our lives." Or the men who came before them. Maybe, maybe if he can get past this current hurdle with Baekhyun, he'll admit that part later. 

"You sound like you only hook up with chicks or something?" Baekhyun teases, like he's still fishing for that something else, or the reason he and Kris met on an online dating site where Kris supposedly likes guys.

"Uhm, yeah. Kinda."

There's silence for a few seconds while Baekhyun slowly eyes him up and down, one eyebrow raised. "Seriously?" he asks.

"Yeah. Seriously," Kris quietly confirms. 

Baekhyun looks a bit startled, but not thrown off. For the first time, Kris wishes that he'd met Baekhyun a long time ago, back when he still had a heart for rejection. He isn't really invested in Baekhyun right now, but maybe... it would have been nice to make that plunge. Now though it's probably too late. So he supposes... but then Baekhyun says, "Okay," shrugs, and turns back towards the rest of their undrunk bottle of wine.

Kris stalls for time, having no idea what Baekhyun means. Is that okay for  _I don't care?_  Or okay for  _let me finish this drink and then skedaddle._

"What-" he stutters. 

"Bad relationship then? With your last girlfriend?" Baekhyun asks like he really wants to know, and there's no underlying judgment beneath his breath as Kris expected there to be.

"Uhhh, basically, yeah. She... broke up with me." 

The story comes out almost unbidden from there. He didn't plan on telling Baekhyun his life story, but apart from Jongdae, he's never shared the story. How he planned the perfect evening. How he got tickets to a musical Jessica had long wanted to see, then dinner afterwards at a fancy diner, a four course meal, and he popped the ring during the dessert round. He'd put so much focus into that night, sure that it would be pivotal for his life. As it happened, it was, but for a very different reason. He can still visualize the place, the table, the pattern of the table cloth and how professionally sad the waiters appeared to be when all was said and done. They'd probably laughed their heads off at the idiot at Table 12, but Kris would never know. He'd sat at the table, alone, for as long as he dared to wait, praying she'd come back, praying that her condescending apology for apparently stringing him along for four, long ass years was just a joke. 

"And then she called the next day and apologized again, and it was just the worse thing in the world and..." Kris wants to cry all over again. Damn the wine, but Baekhyun is such an attentive listener, frowning and cooing at all the right moments.

"Hey, now. No more wine for you." 

Kris is astounded when Baekhyun won't let him finish his drink. "Huh?"

"You've relived a big thing tonight." Baekhyun looks serious, but then he cracks a smile. "I can't possibly live with my conscience if you get wasted under my care. Hey let's talk about something else."

"Like online dating matches?" Kris doesn't mean to bring this up right now, but there was.

"We could..." Baekhyun hums. 

"You know, you're pretty much the opposite type to everything I like."

"Wow, so direct!" Baekhyun laughs. "See, that's what I like about you but... how come you clicked dudes?"

"I didn't. My best friend did."

"Ahhhh. Well I guess that makes sense now."

Baekhyun downs the last of the wine, but he doesn't look very affected by it. 

"So, you've never dated a guy before? What does this make me, your first?" 

Kris swallows heavily at Baekhyun's easy, pandering question. Kris likes him. The realization was growing, simmering. Anyone else might have just let him go on and turn into a slobbering drunk. He wants to reward him properly, honestly. "Actually... I have. You're not the first. It's just... been a very long while."

He sees the dawn of understanding in Baekhyun's gaze, the returning spark of interest, as if he's saying, 'Ah hah! Challenge accepted!' 

"Oh Kris. You're cute. Well, you will be once I can find something to tie your hair back with. It's so long! Come on, let me make a ponytail! A man bun, anything, please?"

Somewhere in between blushing and acquiescing and getting his hair halfway yanked out by the roots, Kris lets himself relax and let Baekhyun in. It's a lazy evening that turns even lazier, and Baekhyun hums while he plays with Kris' hair, drawing out more and more facts about each of Kris' former girlfriends, and the boyfriends eventually too.

"Don't worry," Kris thinks he hears Baekhyun say before the night is over. "I know it's been a long time, but we can take this slow. Nice and slow... Easy there, don't move too fast... Ugh, your legs are all tangled up. Kris, why are you writhing all over the place? Just stay still. This won't hurt at all! It's just... Kris will you stop trying to strip! This isn't American Idol! It's just karaoke. Here, hold the mic... I said quit moving, oh my God. There go all the cords again. I told you you'd just get them tangled up. Here, sit here. No more drinks for you... Just, don't move. And you know what, I'll sing first."

 

 

 

Several weeks later, Kris is nearly having a panic attack outside of the jewelry store entrance, Baekhyun pushing insistently from behind, and when Kris won't go in the door, he slips past him and starts pulling him from the front instead. 

"It's just a ring, Kris. No big deal. I'll do the talking!"

He catches a glimpse of himself in a passing vanity mirror, short black hair - he wouldn't let Baekhyun turn him blond, yet. His face looks drained of blood though, but that's alright. Baekhyun has enough color in his cheeks for both of them when they step up to the counter. 

"Excuse me," Baekhyun starts to explain. "My boyfriend and I were looking for some help... You see, he tried to buy me this big ass, ugly two carat diamond ring, and come on... do I look the type of guy who wants to be mistaken for having a sugar daddy? I don't, right? See, Kris. Exactly what I've been saying!"

Baekhyun winks at him, but Kris' words fail completely. He lets Baekhyun finish the negotiation, passing over the small square box that's been haunting Kris' life since the moment Jessica rejected it. Baekhyun toys with the seller, hamming up their whole pretense, with the idea of exchanging it for a different band that suits him better but, 'You know what? None of these appeal to me. Let's just do the warranty refund and maybe something will turn up better in the future. Right Kris?"

Kris nods, already thinking about the home share vacation rental website that Jongdae goaded him into signing up for, now that he has a steady boyfriend again. He hasn't told Baekhyun yet, but Jongdae assures him that Baekhyun will just love the beach. Kris hates sand, but it would be nice for the two of them to get away and have some real fun. Perhaps he'll dye his hair blond first. Or dye Baekhyun's red.

Yeah, he thinks Baekhyun will look good in red. 

 


End file.
